Finding my Space

The residency began on the 2nd of June and the new education centre was still under construction when I arrived so, for the first 6 weeks, I did not have a studio. All my tools, catalogues, reference information and materials were locked in the ancient trunk I sent down and it was kept safely in the post room so I was unable to access all my carefully prepared material.

I used the six weeks without a studio to wander through the eight miles of galleries in the V&A with camera and sketchbook. At the request of the Crafts Council and with lots of help from the computer expert Jonathan, I prepared a lecture that I presented at the New Designers exhibition to new graduates and I contributed to an Emerging Maker Creative Mentoring session in Plymouth with the Crafts Council maker development team.

I also worked in my accommodation preparing models for the various teaching projects using borrowed hand tools, legs of chairs and broom handles and other domestic utensils to wind wire round.

Dorothy Hogg is internationally recognised as both an artist jeweller and a teacher of jewellery and silversmithing. She has enjoyed a lifetime of success as a world-renowned maker, and was head of Edinburgh College of Art’s Jewellery and Silversmithing Department for almost 20 years. As well as maintaining her own creative practice she also curates exhibitions, sits on educational and craft boards, and promotes Scottish Jewellery across the world. Dorothy was Artist in Residence at the V&A between July and December 2008.

We have a thriving and exciting programme of artists in residence here at the Museum, with at least two practitioners inhabiting our studios at any given time.

Here we show the process of being an artist or designer in residence here at the V&A, with behind-the-scenes insights and stories from Residency Co-ordinator, Laura Carderera, and the artists themselves.